One of the driving forces behind Oracle's three-year corporate buying frenzy has been to add customers to its roster by owning the 44 tech companies supplying them.
Problem is, you you can have all the customers under the sun but if they ain't spending on IT they ain't buying your products.
Now, it seems Oracle's $13bn plus M&A …

Recession may not mean more OSS

Strangely enough, I have seen more OSS-based projects during boom times than recessions. From past experience, what happens in a recession is the boards get even more risk-adverse. Whilst stretching existing kit and software to the limit becomes the order of the day, when it comes to new projects that can't be delayed or scrapped the drive is to get them in on-time and to budget ASAP, and so they see proven stacks as providing the best guarantee of that. Unless the open source solution is just as proven as the OTS (off-the-shelf) one, those whose jobs depend on it being right will plump for the OTS choice as they see it as being less of a risk.

I can remember going to the boardroom in another company in 2001 with two solutions for a business requirement - one of proven software (including Oracle) on UNIX servers; the other Red Hat on x86 with OSS software from several sources, which had not been tested before, and would need some inhouse coding to get it all to work. Despite the OSS solution being less than a third of the price (even after including a 200% costing for the inhouse work), we could only project the likely success of the OSS solution as a 90% certainty, whereas the OTS solution was already proven. The board went for the OTS solution.

I see it as more likely that existing kit will need to last even longer, so lots of upgrades and extended contract negotiations to look forward to. OSS like Linux will get a look in for situations when it can show it has a proven option with minimal disruption and risk.

Fed up Oracle user

Just been speaking to a mate of mine who uses Ingres and is laughing like a drain at me. The gist is: Ingres don't shaft them on price because 1) you don't pay a licence fee, just an annual subscription fee 2) you get all the software you need in one hit with no optional extras and 3) there's no hidden extras like internet access fees or the scourge of my life - bloody novation fees. Their tech support people actually answer the phone, and they're really good at sorting issues. Well, I'm convinced. the fat cats have had it their own way for too long.

Open source provides control, lower TCO and innovation

With the ongoing price gouging and vendor lock in to the Oracle stack, it's no wonder people are looking for New Economics in IT solutions . The time is right to look at open standards, to chose infrastructure that doesn't lock you in to one vendor's stack. Open source solutions provide choice and flexiblity to enterprises without holding them hostage to commercial terms that don't fit today's economy. Ingres is working with Red Hat and a number of other open source companies to bring solutions to the marketplace that provide choice and lower costs to enterprise without an impact to innovation and new solutions. For more information about how - click here....

Who buys Oracle anymore?

Don't forget about SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server just launched a major technology release, as good as most applications will ever need, somewhat more reasonable priced and all the shelter of a huge and profitable company.

MS's database business is creeping up towards several billion in revenue with nobody screaming at what a bummer it is. Maybe MS does make sense as an option to Oracle if you want a real company behind your future upgrades and support